the clock is running out on the fiscal cliff. i'll talk to the former cabinet secretary who says going over the cliff is better than getting a bad deal. the auto industry is back. what it's doing right in a soft economy? we'll find out what's driving profitability. curtain's up on the billion dollar woman who made the lion roar, julie taymor.

>> we never had a complaint about it. >> "the wall street journal report" begins right now. now, maria bartiromo. >> here's a look at what's making news. some surprisingly good news about america's economy. the labor department says 146,000 new jobs were created in the month of november. much better than economist's expectations. the unemployment rate dropped two tenth of a% at 7.7%. the labor department also says superstorm sandy had little effect on those numbers. the markets continued their familiar pattern of following the latest word or words or hopes on fiscal cliff. no major moves during the week but several times the market ran out of steam to the end of the trading session. the house of representatives left for a long weekend on

wednesday. so while there may be behind the scenes action in terms of talks, no one from the house is home. big moves by citigroup's new chairman and ceo. he announced 11,000 layoffs this week. citi will take a pre-tax charge of more than a billion dollars. the markets liked the move. the stock rallied about 7% on the expense cuts. a big deal for netflix and dismy, they announced a licensing agreement to show disney movies shortly after they leave the theaters. the fiscal cliff and jobs numbers and state of the economy. who better to talk about all of that than robert reich, former secretary of labor in the clinton administration and current economics professor at the university of california at berkeley. good to see you. thanks so much for joining us. >> how are you? >> let's talk about these numbers on friday, the surprisingly strong jobs numbers. 146,000 new jobs created. the unemployment rate dropping to 7.7%. we were expecting some impact

from the super storm sandy in earlier thanksgiving. what do the numbers say about the economy? >> apparently we are still struggling. these are not hugely wonderful numbers but undoubtedly we're moving in the right direction. the early thanksgiving may have canceled out negative effects of sandy. sandy really did not have much of an effect in november. >> interesting -- do you think we'll see revisions next month? >> we probably will. every month we're seeing revisions and so far they have been downward. the revisions we saw friday for october and september, were both downward slightly. i wouldn't be surprised if we see downward revisions coming up. the other big story we're talking about is the fiscal cliff. can you help us read the tea leaves. we heard from timothy geithner and he was asked, if you.n don'

get higher tax rates on the rich and doing away with loopholes, exemptions, are you peepd repar go off the cliff? he said absolutely. the republicans with the counter proposals this week. how do you read all of this? >> please, you know as well as i do maria, what happens in the public when you have these intense negotiations going on is really -- is no reflection of what's going on in the negotiations at all. i think it's important that president and the white house and tim geithner and others obviously think it's important to keep up the possibility of going over the physical cliff to put maximum pressure on the republicans and the republicans are starting to talk about the possibility of holding up the debt ceiling come january or february. >> it's interesting you say this. you're focused on taxes and much of the conversation has been on taxes and raising rates and revenue. we're not seeing any of the same

elaborate conversation when it comes to sizable spending cuts. >> i think maria, what the president has said and this is actually what the word is inside the white house as well, the president has come up with some very substantial cuts in the increase, the scheduled increases of medicare and also medicaid and those cuts have to do with pushing and squeezing suppliers using the bargaining leverage to get suppliers and providers to reduce their costs. that was at issue during the campaign. remember the romney and ryan were claiming that the president was taking too much out of medicare. well the president is saying, look, i have done that and even putting $400 billion of additional cuts on the table and that's all i can possibly do politically. i've got a lot of democrats who say i don't want medicare touched or social security touched. >> then of course, the whole irresponsible actions of both sides going on vacation.

there have been suggestions, notably by warren buffett that congress should not get paid and not have health insurance until they come to an agreement. >> i think there is a lot of negotiating behind the scenes, maria. staffs are meeting almost constantly. but you raise a good point and interesting point. the optics as washington likes to call it, of going on vacation when you have a fiscal cliff looming, if you don't have an agreement are simply awful. boehner has already told the republicans that nobody is going on vacation until this thing is settled. i think the democrats are probably going to say, pelosi and reid will say the same thing for the democrats. i wouldn't be surprised if congress stayed in session maybe all the way until the 21st of december. this is going to be not to put too fine a point on it, a cliff hanger with regard to the fiscal cliff. i think there will be some movement. in other words, they will not go on vacation unless there's some

agreement about what a framework is going to be or some way that they are going to avoid basically seeing tax rates going up on january 1st and major spending cuts go into effect. there will be some delay if they don't reach a tentative agreement by say december 21st when they head home. >> i would hope so because i think america is going to be upset at this point in time we all recognize what the implications of going over the cliff are. good to have you on the program. >> if i can just say, capital markets will be upset. that's going to upset rest of america. but most consumers say fiscal cliff, what fiscal cliff? i don't know what that is. >> you're right. you've got the business community sitting on their cash and wall street waiting on every word and consumer spending as if nothing. but it comes home to roost, robert reich. thank you so much. >> thank you. up next, drive time. are american cars zooming along? the best news for the auto

sector in years. living with lions, theater director julie taymor with me. we take a break and look at the stock market ended the week. back in a moment. two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf.

bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars

to help those affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open, and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. and bp's also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger. welcome back. in spite of economic uncertainty, it is on pace to sell more than 15 million new cars this year. mike jackson is the ceo of autonation. good to have you on the program. welcome back. i was surprised what's going on with auto sales, five-year high for auto sales with so much uncertainty about the economy,

this fiscal cliff. what's behind this strength? >> in an otherwise aneemic weak economic recovery with a lot of pain out there in america, the automotive recovery is a bright spot. industry sales collapsed in '08 and '09 from a sustainable selling rate of 16, 17 million down to a low of 10. there was no financing available for our customers for a couple of years so that pushed out the average age of the cars on the road in america to an unprecedented 11 years. american consumer basically stopped fixing the cars during that period of time. now they need to do something. >> it's this replacement cycle. it's time to get a new car. i'm wondering if this strength in auto sales last month, is partly a move toward taking from the future? in other words, is the hurricane sandy related at all?

did the hurricane pull up auto sales from next year into this year? >> no, the replacement need is millions of units that are backed up that is going to last for next several years. now the industry in november had a selling rate of 15 million, 500,000. i think the full year will average right around mid 14. so there was some hurricane sandy. but in our sales and we're a sun belt company without any sandy effect, our sales improved 8% over october and we were up 21% in the month of november. that had nothing to do with hurricane sandy. >> is the fiscal cliff affecting your business, mike? are you seeing consumers hesitant about buying? we were talking about the fact that consumers are pretty optimistic while business is sitting on cash, anticipating the results.

what is it doing to your business? >> maria, it's amazing and head scratcher and maybe i just worry too much but the american consumer believes or has faith, confidence, whatever you call it that there's going to be some sort of resolution around the fiscal cliff and that washington, d.c. is not so recklessly irresponsible to throw this economy back in recession. they are behaving as if the fiscal cliff is going to be resolved. auto sales have met the challenges of the debt crisis of high gas prices and now the fiscal cliff with the american consumer on a durable good saying, you know, we think at the end of the day they are going to do the right thing and this is going to get resolved. >> what are you saying out there? what are the hottest brands, luxury to economy brands? what are you selling most and what's hot? >> i think that most important development in the marketplace is the embracing of fuel economy

by the american consumer in an unprecedented way. what's interesting is it's not hybrids and electronics they are impressing, here's the impression. you can have the same size vehicle with the same speed but a 25 to 30% improvement in fuel efficiency with traditional technologies that you get your money back in two to three years. that's a winning proposition to the american consumer. >> most auto companies market to men and yet women are making the lion's share of financial decisions. how come the auto sector isn't marketing to women? is your industry behind the times? >> our industry is behind the times in some ways. maria. our data shows that 60% of women are deciding what finally happens. regardless, they are brilliant and let the man think they've decided but at the end of the

day it's the woman who has decided. i'll tell you what's changed. in this digital world of today, women or men can do their research and their negotiating from their ipad, mobile phone or home computer. and women are very comfortable in that environment. and really like the fact that they are now in control of the negotiation rather than the old scheme where they have to come into the dealership and jump through the hoops. >> i'm very optimistic that a transformation is underway. much more customer friendly. >> good to talk with you, thanks so much. >> i'll see you soon. up next, the woman behind the king. tony winning lion king director julily taymor. >> you've seen it how many times? i've seen it hundreds. if you think running a restaurant is hard,

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welcome back, the musical "the lion king" marked 15 years on broadway. the story of a lion cub raised by a wart hog and meerkat was a hit for disney, since opening in november of 1997. it has become the highest grossing broadway musical in

history. julie taymor told me how she turned a two dimensional film into a live experience that has been playing the world over. >> you were first woman to win the tony for "the lion king" highest grossing musical bringing in a $6 billion. did you envision such success? >> no. >> talk to us about what you were expecting. bringing a cartoon to broadway. >> i don't know if i had any expectations about the commercial success. the producers wanted what i had done in the theater. been in theater all my life. there is a clash, a bit of a tension between giving the audience what they think they want, especially in a big known piece like "the lion king" and giving them something that they didn't know that they wanted. that's where i love to live ♪ it's the circle of life >> there were other people

involved at the time in disney who weren't theater people and didn't think the masks and puppets could work. we did workshops and tests and michael easener said, your first idea, let's go with it. it's risky, bumt the bigger the risk, the bigger the payoff. they have to feel that risk is necessary to create something that's going to be ground breaking. >> i know resonating and touching someone emotionally has to make you feel unbelievable. but is this something that you're proud of, $6 billion in profits, the lion king in the 16th year of broadway, selling tickets around the world. >> i'm proud and we're number one. i think that because it's a show which is also -- there are not that many because it's a show that's good for families, people come back. you've seen it how many times? >> five. >> five times. >> i've seen it hundreds.

>> what about the global story? the lion king right now playing globally. do you have to change things depending on the audience, different cultures and countries? >> it's been fun with lion king, really fun because for instance, in madrid last september, we opened the first spanish speaking lion king in madrid. and you get to a point where timone and pumba are supposed to do a charleston and they do a flamenco dance and the whole audience is going -- ole. so spectacular. as soon as you do that, you make it part of that culture. i think the most exciting story about this was in south africa in jo han he is burg, we were casting timone and pumba we cast a africana pum ba and you had

two characters who would nevint great with each other because of apartide. and the audience felt it. it happened just by sheer casting. and then the accent and all. different -- it was very, very thrilling and they would mock each other and play with each other. there were many things like that where political and social things have happened in the experience of the lion king going into a different country. >> does commercial successor the potential of commercial success dictate how the show is put together, what goes into the show? >> everybody who is a producer is going to think about the weekly running cost. and the potential of how much money and size of the theater it could make. >> when i did lion king i had no idea how much it cost. i found out last year what it cost and it was much more than i thought. but it's made upward of $6

billion so no one complained about it. >> how tough is it creatively to introduce new technology to an industry that typically really doesn't have that kind of technology that we see elsewhere in the digital world? >> lion king is low tech and it was intentionally so. you see the rods and strings and that was a concept that i wanted very much for the lion king. i wanted people to see old style puppet tri, mask work. as a person who works in theater and i lived in asia for four years and i've seen it in its original form. it was there to bridge the gap between the inexplicable in life. look how disney has always dealt with death. they don't shy away. oh, my god mufasa is dying, we can't put that on broadway. they say there is a lesson, all fairy tales and myths have helped us get through the times

and that's about how you tell children how you survive a death in the family or illness. >> the circle of life. >> and those lessons are very important and why people bring their kids to the theater. they have a great time but if they can bring something home that has made their lives fuller, richer and more complete, then i have done my job. >> my thanks to julie taymor, up next, we'll look at the news in upcoming week that have an impact on your money. >> when buzz is bad for you, the most overused buzz words on your resume. this is america.

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en we got married. i had three kids. and she became the full time mother of three. it was soccer, and ballet, and cheerleading, and baseball. those years were crazy. so, as we go into this next phase, you know, a big part of it for us is that there isn't anything on the schedule.

beginning in january, we'll have a new name, "on the money with maria bartiromo. great guests and of course i'll be here as well. we hope you'll join us. now a look at the stories coming up in the week ahead. on tuesday, we'll find out if the u.s. is importing or exporting more goods when the balance of trade will be released. on wednesday the federal reserve will wrap up last meeting for 2012 with another press conference from ben bernanke. wednesday is his birthday, happy 59th mr. chairman. november retail sales report will be out on wednesday as is the first of two inflation indicators, tracks prices at the whole sale level and followed up on friday with the consumer price index which follows. finally, if you are on this list, it doesn't set you apart.

professional networking site linkedin released 2012's most overused bud words on profiles. they are being used so often they lose significance with hiring manager. analyzing 187 million profiles around the globe. creative is the top offender in the united states as well as seven other countries. rounding out the rest of the top fire, organizational, effective, motivated and extensive experience. using buzz words in an effort to land your dream gig can be a buzz kill, just fyi. my guest next week, grover nor quist. we'll get an update on where we stand with the fiscal cliff negotiation. keep it here where wall street meets main street. i'll see you again next weekend. bp has paid over twenty-threebp billion dollarsnt to the gulf.

to help those affected and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open, and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. and bp's also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger.